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by Jamie Jeffers | Ways We Saved This Week | 7 comments
What a week. I decided to migrate my blog to Siteground. Everything was finished and ready to go, when I made a small adjustment….and broke the whole blog.
I was so frustrated! After a lot of back and forth between a few different sites, we finally got it working again. It took all day.
I guess the good thing is that I was able to test Siteground’s customer service on day one. I would certainly recommend them! They were very patient and helpful. (You can try them out for 3 months for free if you use my referral link!)
But let’s get down to the task at hand. Every Friday I collect the ways that we saved money this week. You can read the entire series here.
The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week
Team Pictures
Two of the four baseball/softball teams that our kids play with needed team photos taken. Our usual photographer was out of town. My friend decided she would just take the pictures for one of the teams herself.
That got me to thinking. I’ve improved my photography skills over the past years. I could probably get away with taking some baseball pictures! So I gave it a go.
I’m not as good as a professional, and my editing skills are non-existent. But they turned out good enough! I was able to give copies of the pictures to all the parents for free. That saved all of us money!
Coach Gifts
When you have a good coach, you’ve got to take care of them. Even a small token of gratitude means a lot to volunteers. You wouldn’t believe the trouble volunteers go through for our kids. If you have people like this in your life, be sure to thank them!
My Hubby decided to save a few game balls and have all the boys sign them for the Dads that have helped so much this year. It’s a fun way to give them a small memory of the year.
Our little guy left his bike out in a downpour. This mudprint cracked me up!
Skipping Investments
My Hubby has become really interested in the stock market. I’m happy about it, because (hopefully) it won’t be too long until this debt is gone. And that will leave us in a position to start investing some more money. (We do contribute to a 401(k) type of account to a smaller degree already.)
He’s been staying the #yearofno course though, even when it’s been really tempting to buy small bits of stock here and there.
Grocery Games
Kroger stores are running an instant win game right now. Try it out here! I managed to win some Hillshire Farms smoked sausage, which was fun! I also actually remembered to redeem my Friday Freebie.
Summer Reading
The kids and I all earned some prizes from the public library for the summer reading program. We got some free books and other fun stuff.
I read a book that was outside my comfort zone and did it in just a few weeks time. I’m so happy that I’ve made reading a priority this summer!
Those are the 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week!
I’m glad the blog is back up and running, because I’d definitely miss connecting with you guys. 🙂
Check out 6 Mom Hacks That Make Summer a Breeze!
How did you save this week?
Find out how our family of 8 keeps a good stockpile of food on a budget. Here are the steps we take that make it easy to always have plenty of food on hand.
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Lance @ My Strategic Dollaron June 30, 2017 at 8:38 am
Great job with the photography! Paying for pictures for any occasion can be absurdly expensive so I’m glad you stepped in!
Emily @ JohnJaneDoeon June 30, 2017 at 10:09 am
Kroger’s been mailing me some incredible coupons lately, all for store brand products we buy all the time (cheese, sausages, yogurt, ICE CREAM). I don’t usually coupon, but these are for products we buy all the time, and a lot of them are for FREE products.
I don’t know that it’s the worst time for your hubby not to be able to invest…Price to earnings ratios seem pretty high right now.
Jamie Jefferson June 30, 2017 at 11:39 am
That’s true, and a good way to look at it when he’s tempted! 🙂
Karl Steineron June 30, 2017 at 1:47 pm
You probably know this already, given you are a personal finance blogger. However, I highly recommend that when you start stock investing, buy low cost ETFs or mutual funds. The lowest costs ones are usually some type of index fund. This is much better than trying to buy individual stocks or higher cost “actively manged” ETFs.
It’s really hard for even the experts to pick winning individual stocks for the long run. There is a lot of information out there backing this up, which is consistent with my own experience. I can provide you some references if you like.
I tried stock picking in one account for about 13 years, and 90% of my picks were failures one way or another, which was very stressful. In contrast, index ETFs are pretty much “set it and forget it”. Good luck!
Jamie Jefferson June 30, 2017 at 2:13 pm
Absolutely agree. And when we’re ready, I need to do more research on dividend stocks, too. I think Hubby would like to play with individual stocks, but we will do that on a very small basis and not really as part of our overall strategy.
RAnnon July 1, 2017 at 10:04 am
As you can tell by reading my blog, I like to play in the stock market, and that is what I consider my individual stock purchases–toys. I’d like to think I pick winners, and I’ve done alright, but most investment dollars belong in low-cost mutual funds.
Melon July 1, 2017 at 12:07 pm
Aw, summer reading! I used to love those programs at the library when I was younger.
